My Night with a Cheetah Girl

While working a red carpet event the other night, I was deep undercover. No one knew I was a mom with two kids waiting anxiously for me to come home and kiss them before they went to sleep. There I was, surrounded by models, fashionistas, television reporters and even the mayor and all I could think about was damn, this place is crowded and I hope I can zip out of here before I miss my eight o'clock train. And then, it happened. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a beautiful young girl who drew a striking resemblance to one of the Cheetah girls.

At first, I was too embarrassed to ask if it was really her, but then I nudged a friend who knows everything and anyone relating to the entertainment industry. She was skeptical since she rarely TiVo's the Disney Channel, but after some investigating, we received confirmation, it was indeed, Chu-chi - the cute Cheetah girl who manages to get the entire group to head to Spain and perform in an international music competition during last year's Cheetah-licious movie fest that I watched with my daughter about 150 times.

I shamelessly introduced myself to Chu-Chi (her name is actually Adrienne) and she couldn't have been sweeter. I told her my daughter was a huge fan and complemented her beautiful voice, she thanked me, smiled and I went back to work.

But then, the kiddy concert stalker in me reared its ugly head again. I stared into my brand new trendy Michael Kors bag (a gift I bought for myself for becoming a business owner), zipped open my carrying case and whipped out my iPhone. The coast was clear so I walked back over and asked if it was okay to take a picture of her for my daughter. And she was so sweet that she not only let me take the picture - she had her publicist take a picture of both of us! I then showed her a picture of my daughter, Adrienne told me how cute she was and I was literally beaming. I then wedged myself back into the crowd and struck up a nice conversation with Billy Joel's wife - man, I wish he were there too so I could have asked him to sing "Theme from an Italian Restaurant" - sure that would have been shameless - but hey, I already embarrassed myself with a Cheetah girl, why stop there?

I hung around a little while longer and as the crowd dissipated, I made my way out of the club and straight to the train - hoping my daughter would still be awake when I walked in the door. I even contemplated forcing her to wake up but kissed her head instead and then the next morning, I surprised her with my photo with the Cheetah Girl.

Becca of course looked at it and wailed - why wasn't I there? Can I see her? Does she want to meet me? As I thought about the prospect of attempting to scalp tickets and backstage passes to a Cheetah Girls concert, I printed out a very grainy photo of me and Chu-chi which Becca took with her to school and managed to impress all her friends. Now if I can only meet Zach Ephron, I'll officially wind up in the parent hall of fame!